Secret World Dev Rebuilds Lego MMO

Lego's last MMO went down the toilet back in January, but there's at least one developer who still thinks the franchise is salvageable. Funcom, makers of such MMOs as The Secret World and Age of Conan, has taken on the Lego challenge, and announced its partnership with Lego Group today.

Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas enthusiastically welcomed the deal. "This is source material we all know and love," he said, "and we simply cannot wait to get started working with the Lego Group on realizing this exciting project." The announcement didn't go into great detail about the MMO itself, but cited Lego's massive range of minifigs - 340 million due to be produced in 2012 alone - as reason to celebrate the new franchise.

The massive range of minifigs didn't save Lego's own attempt at creating a branded MMO. When Lego Group decided to pull the plug, stating that not enough players had switched from free-to-play to paid subscription, 115 jobs went along with it. Funcom's experience in the MMO field has been mixed, much of it again down to money issues. Age of Conan went hybrid back in 2011, incorporating both free-to-play and subscription elements, not unlike Lego Group's failed offering; yet-to-be-released The Secret World is on subscription only, for the moment.